Why Business Owners Should Plan for Failure and Not Success

Tag Archives: business

When you find online advice aimed at entrepreneurs, most of it will focus on things like investing, creating a business plan, refining products, etc. Although these are very important aspects to cover when running a business, there is also another side to the whole story. People like to consider and prepare only for good things that might happen to them in their business endeavors. It is important to dream about success, but you won’t get there if you don’t plan for failures as well.

Bear in mind that the majority of start-up businesses fail in their starting years. And, if not prepared properly, they are likely to close down soon after they open up. By changing your mindset, you will find it easier to recognize the biggest business issues and prepare financially, emotionally and intellectually, to make the necessary steps in case a certain business endeavor fails.

Planning For Failure Is Not Wrong

You might think that this is somewhat paranoid or negative. On the contrary, planning for disastrous situations only makes you smarter than the rest. First of all, let’s get something clear, there is a huge difference between thinking that you are going to fail and preparing yourself for failure. These are two completely different things.

When thinking that you are going to fail, you will discourage yourself and hold back growth. Being prepared means making practical decisions and thinking about all possible outcomes, so that you can prepare and motivate yourself.

In many ways, this kind of attitude can also encourage you to make more progress, since being prepared removes fear and gives you confidence to keep going further. Additionally, if you are honest to yourself and if you think about your future, it will be much easier to identify the mistakes you are making along the way, and correct them as you go.

You Will Look At Things More Objectively

Starting up and being a leader of a business can be a very emotional and difficult experience. The majority of entrepreneurs feel like their company is their “baby”, since it’s something that they started and took care of since the very beginning with utmost devotion. By preparing yourself for worst case scenarios, you can balance the whole thing.

How exactly can this be done? By planning for failure in advance or considering exit strategies, you will start looking at facts and possible negative outcomes, becoming more objective and analytical in your actions.

You will get a much better perspective if distanced from your business organization, as it will be much easier for you to look at your company from a customer’s or an investor’s standpoint. Generating ideas will be much easier and you can also notice all the errors you’ve made because you were too emotionally invested.

Moving On Will Be Much Easier When Planning For Failure

Preparing and considering all possible outcomes can help you handle hard blows that might happen in the future. A big part of being an entrepreneur is making mistakes, understanding where you went wrong and dealing with them. Everyone makes errors, and it’s impossible to make everything run smoothly without a hitch. You have to learn to overcome your failures quickly and learn from them, so that you don’t repeat them in the future.

It’s highly unlikely that your first start-up will instantly take off. This is why you must be prepared to deal with current problems and adjust to make progress. Plan financially, mentally and emotionally, and remove your personal feelings from it as much as possible. This is the only way to recharge your energy and keep dealing with new business affairs. When I first started optimizing my e-commerce store, we had a lot of problems, but we kept our heads cool and made things work in the end. You need to learn to roll with the punches if you want to overcome adversity and succeed.

Nobody wants to face failure, but this is one of the important parts of being an entrepreneur. Cover all the aspects of running a business such as marketing, business growth strategies, hiring capable workers, and you won’t have any major problems. The important thing is to keep moving forward and not let the mistakes you’ve made discourage you. Best of luck to you on the road towards success.

When you started your work, you were so excited and passionate to go online, so you ignored all the alerts and bad reputation your cheap host had.

The low prices and flashy website made you look past the 1-year contract you had to sign and the initial setup fee.

The thrill and excitement of building an e-commerce store of your own made you blind and now you start to realize that all those promises of maximum uptime and dedicated customer service were all just empty words.

This is why we have put together these 6 steps that can help you break it off with that web host without having to bring your site down.

Perform Local Backups For Your Website

Before you even think of sending that email, telling your current host that their services are no longer required and that you cannot tolerate your site being down all the time, you should prepare for “moving out” first.

Copy all of your dll files, scripts, other files and the whole database your website has – copy it all to some local computer of your own.

You should also make sure that you either remember or store the necessary configuration information.

Get your SSL key and certificate, if you have them, and record all information concerning drivers, software, security settings or registry entries you may have changed, as they could be different on your new host’s server.

Search For A New Web Hosting Provider

The important thing is to first figure out what you want from your website and then figure out a suitable hosting package for it.

It is essential that you check the configuration and software information of your site, so that you can see if the potential hosting service has the ability to support all of the things that you will be running on your website.

Acquire Domain Name Registration Information

Find a useful WHOIS site, where you can check if you are listed as an administrative contract for the domain name you have – simply put, check if you are registered as the sole owner of the domain name you use. If this is not the case, you are at the mercy of your old host for that domain name, and you might be in for a long legal battle in order to get permission to move your domain name to your new server.

This is why you should try to smoothly get out of the deal and leave everything on neutral terms.

Transfer Your Site To Your New Host

Load your database and files onto the servers of your new host. Try finding a host that is able to give you a part time domain which you can use for testing until you are 100 % ready to make the switch.

It is essential that you change path information that includes script paths or links, so that they can work properly.

Furthermore, if you had to change your primary user id or database name, make sure you update your code according to those changes.

Update Information About Your Domain

If the new web hosting service you choose is also a domain registrar, then this switch will not pose a problem.

If not, they should still probably be able to contact your previous hosting provider or the registrar where your site is registered.

However, if you are not the administrative contact holder, you will have problems – this time, don’t make the same mistake and make sure that you have all the administrative rights. The best time to make the switch is when your traffic is at its lowest.

Cancel The Old Web Hosting Service

Now, when you have switched your domain name and your site has been tested and put to work, it’s time to send the email to your old provider and inform them that it’s over.

Make sure that you look through your whole contract thoroughly, so that you don’t get caught in some loopholes.

Now that you have a properly supported online presence, focus on learning more about your business. When you are getting a new hosting provider, take your time and try not to let the same mistakes happen twice.

Read the contract you are about to sign thoroughly and analyze all of your web hosting options.